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It’s rained off and on all day today; it’s a great day to stay in our pj’s and veg!!! Unfortunately I was forced to get dressed pretty early on…there’s a big storm coming through and we might have to go to the shelter. I got a tornado warning at one point on my phone but it wasn’t for our county. I got a bag ready and got dressed anyway. I made the boys put on shoes and jackets, too. If we have to walk the short distance to the shelter we don’t need to be fumbling with getting our clothes on. I let them stay in their pj’s, and considered staying in mine, but in the end I just got dressed. I talked to Ted for a good bit while he helped me read the radar view and download the Red Cross tornado warning app. He’s an awesome husband!

For lunch grits and eggs were on the menu, but I was feeling nachos and Max agreed, so that’s what we had. I gave Jack a butter knife and had him cut up a cucumber and I cut up some cherry tomatoes and Max dressed that with lemon juice and herb oil from Wegmans as our side. Then we had more stocking candy for dessert. Yum!

The boys had a lot of electronics and TV today, and I worked on my blog and read a bit. Max folded a ton of clothes and put them up, too. I was supposed to cut their hair, but you know how that goes. I guess I’ll do it tomorrow.

For supper I made a big salad with apple, cranberries, nuts, yeast, cucumber, tomatoes, boiled eggs, herbed vinegar and lemon juice. It was great! We occasionally watch The Goldbergs with supper; it’s such a funny show! And mostly clean enough for the boys to watch.

Last night before going to bed Max also made the boat Grandmom gave him, and it fits in the canal of his Ninjago too!

At one point I told Max he sounded like he’d been smoking and he said he was smokin hot!! That boy cracks me up!

I was finally an adult today and made our dental appointments. Fewf!

Max and Jack have been fighting more lately. I just made a proclamation; because of his attitude and the fighting Max can’t play with Legos until 2pm!!! And I told him after that I’m instituting the 3-strike rule: the 3rd time I catch him winding Jack up I’ll take away Legos and electronics.

For lunch we had steak and eggs with that awesome salsa on top. Jack and I ate our steak cold as I was making lunch; I always like my leftover steak straight from the fridge.

When he was going to play outside Jack said I’m gonna take one bubble outside. Well, maybe four bubbles!

Max cracks me up…his voice is still breaking occasionally, and when he hears it he makes fun of himself. He repeats what he said and exaggerates the breakage. I’m glad he’s not too self-conscious about what he can’t help.

I went grocery shopping before Jack finished school. It’s supposed to rain this afternoon and I want to return the step stool before it starts. Jack did 2 pages of school while I was shopping, but he got all his math problems wrong! I started him off again when I got back, and by the end of the page he was doing his work well on his own.

Max called me while I was shopping; tonight’s their Christmas party at church and he needs a $5 gag gift! That punk! It’s a good thing I was at the store! I bought a can of gold spray paint.

We had biscuits and strawberry jelly for supper, and then headed to church. It’s drizzling now.

I sat with Debbie and Kerry at church. Jack’s class went back before the service started because they’re having a party too. Every week Jack asks us to drop him off like we drop Max off at the back of church, and then when Jack has to go sit with us for the first part of the service he keeps asking to go to his class. I’m glad this week he gets to go early!

When we got out of church Max showed me he got skewers in their gift exchange. Ha! I think it’s a regift, too. We talked to Ted all the way to Aldi, and then I left the boys in the truck while I ran in and got 3 things.

Since we don’t have school tomorrow I let Jack stay up late and watch Despicable Me while I blogged and Max worked on his Legos. Jack got sleepy and went to his bed around 10:15. Max finished his Ninjago at 12:12! I worked on my blog a bit more. I finished DCI Banks and turned off the lights not long after 1.

This morning while snuggling in bed Jack said Mom, where is Daddy? And then he said he wants go home. Sweet!

There was a rocket launch scheduled for this morning, so I set an alarm to watch it. We got up mostly on time and got going. The alarm rang as we were getting ready to read the Bible, so I conferred with Ted about what to do. He sent me the link to check on it, and we went outside a couple of times, but eventually it was scrubbed. Oh well, maybe tomorrow?

During our break before school Max said Jack went over to our neighbor’s house to play with their boys. I stepped out a few minutes later when I didn’t see Jack in our yard and asked the dad if he’d seen Jack…and of course when I turned around Jack was right in front of our bus. I’m such an observant mother!

Jack has done such great math this morning! I got an addition book for him at Dollar Tree a while back and he did several pages this morning: adding with pictures of each thing, adding with dominoes, adding using a number line (he had the most trouble with the second half of this), and there were even a few word problems with accompanying pictures. It’s still more of a rule-following than an understanding of math, but that’s better than nothing!

Max was talking about how he wished Toby McGuire’s Spiderman was more involved in the Marvel movies we’ve seen lately, but then wondered if the actor was still alive. I said he’s younger than me! He said yeah but you’re…. Man, that boy has things to learn about calling people old! It made me laugh so much.

We had egg muffins for lunch. Not long after that Max dropped his Ninjago build! I helped him look for pieces and he’s putting it back together now.

I’d made a few fast passes for the Magic Kingdom, but in these last few days we have there I want to walk around more and just check out things we haven’t done during our time so far. We went to the Speedway first and Jack had a blast!

Then we saw a short line for photos with Buzz Lightyear so we waited; I think Jack would want his photo taken with anyone around, whether they’re a Disney character or a guest! This Buzz was awesome, though. Jack was wearing his Chewbacca shirt so Buzz, through hand motions, said he was a friend of Chewbacca’s, and he pointed out to us the galaxy that Chewy lives in. Also, the family ahead of us had a dad and Buzz motioned that he shouldn’t press the big red button; when the dad did press the big red button Buzz made the dad go stand in time out. He had such a great attitude, just what you want of people dealing with kids.

When we got to the entrance of Mickey’s Philharmagic I asked about getting a DAS, but the standby wait time was only 10 minutes. The Cast Member walked us through the fast pass line anyway. The show was fun, but at one point Jack told me he was scared; that’s a first! Mostly he says he’s not scared with a tone of voice that says he’s really scared. We also rode the carrousel for the first time; Jack always likes those. We got a DAS for Space Mountain and rode that too.

Both boys love playing with this huge stone ball in Tomorrowland.

On the way out I got a couple of great photos of the Christmas decorations!

Coming on property we took the boat to MK because when we got to the top of the monorail ramp they’d just gotten word that the next monorail was going to Epcot for some reason. When we were leaving for the day the line for the monorail was so long that we decided to take the boat back again.

That’s the Contemporary on the right and Space Mountain on the left.(Kinda) hidden Mickey!

For supper we had steak and potatoes and watched The Goldbergs. Leftover stink potatoes; yum!

As Ted was leaving for work early this morning Jack sleepily climbed down his ladder. I sent him to my bed and he slept till 9am!! I called Max into my bed when Jack woke up and Max had been sound asleep too! These boys are tired after this last week!

During school Jack was doing ‘what’ cards and the question was What makes a car go? He said ‘Beep’!!

We just heard a helicopter and Jack said Mom, oh, an airplane! I asked if he heard it or saw it and he said heard it! That’s a first. Could be a fluke, but we’ll keep working on it. A little later we heard a motorcycle and he got it right again! It’s funny, I never realized how hard it could be to distinguish those two senses; at least to Jack it’s hard.

He loves his new 21 shirt!

During school and Jack’s breaks I meal planned, counted our remaining Disney days (11 left!! I didn’t count most Wednesdays or the weekends), and finally was able to scrub the rust out of the kitchen sink. When Max had that experiment a week or so ago with magnets and metal filings he tried to wash the filings off the magnets. I think the little filings rusted there and left 2 sinks and a Corelle bowl stained with rust. I’ve tried several things to get the sinks clean, and Ted had even started looking up how to paint a sink (does that ever work out well?). This morning I tried again with a green scrubber and it came right off! Woot! I also washed a ton of dishes leftover from our Christmas meal last night.

Today’s reading comprehension question for Jack was where was the bike hidden? Without me reading the story again, and without him looking again he said Bush! The answer was behind a bush! I think that totally counts. I made him write the full answer though.

We’ve been able to see Max’s mustache for a while now. It was super faint, and still isn’t super noticeable, but it’s getting darker. Today he rubbed his face on mine and asked if I could feel it! And then we both cracked up. That boy is a nut! He makes me laugh so much!

We realized a few days ago that I think Jack lost his flag Bro. Greg fixed for him. That punk!

I sent Max to the office around 4:30 to get Jack’s last present, animal jenga, and then we video called Ted while Jack opened it.

Not long before supper we met some people from NZ doing this life for a year. The Mom’s name is Kari and one of the boys was called George. The 2 boys played with Jack’s bubbles while the dad set up their camper. They flew into Orlando a week ago and have been staying in a hotel. They picked up their camper today and are setting it up for the first time. They camped a lot in NZ, but I guess this is all new here. I let them borrow our water hose, and helped them figure out the electricity. I’m bummed they’re only staying 1 night! I think between their boys and Jack we’re almost out of bubbles. At least they’ve been put to good use!

Ted snuck out and closed the gray, and also got the Legos we’d hidden. I figured it would be easier to wrap this huge box this morning rather than try not to trip over it during the night. It wasn’t that hard to wrap, although I didn’t have enough of either kind of paper to completely cover it! And I found out later I’d wrapped the marker with the box. Heh! While he was getting the box I lit the oven, and then Ted put the sausage biscuits in to bake for breakfast.

Jack woke up when we were setting up the presents so Ted marched him right to the bathroom. It’s so funny. I know Jack likes getting presents, but I don’t think he’s surprised at all by us having Christmas today, or any other day. Ted was so worried that he not see the stockings or any of the presents until we ‘revealed’ that we were having Christmas today. I understand him being worried that Max got a sneak peek, but not Jack. I guess we’re just different that way.

We woke Max up and he was excited! It’s hard to tell it in this photo because he’s totally not a morning person. Ha! The boys opened their presents and I think Max was really excited about his big Legos. He’s saved up for more than a year for this set; I’m excited for him to get it early.

This is how much he’d put together by suppertime today.

We bought the Switch earlier this year as a family present. Today Max got his Ninjago Legos (he’d been saving up money for more than a year, we gave it to him early with a little money left over to spend), a certificate for a light saber, sunglasses and candy in his stocking. Grandmom gave him 3 boxes of legos.

Jack got some wooden pattern blocks with animal cards, a Chewbacca shirt and another 21 shirt (he’s been so ecstatic about his 21 shirt lately that Ted found him another one). In his stocking he got a yoyo, lots of bubbles and candy. Grandmom got him a big set of magnet shapes.

After breakfast we got ready for church. When we came home from church Ted went to bed right away. He didn’t get the best night’s sleep so he was pretty pooped. The boys and I had scrambled eggs and salsa for lunch, and it was awesome! That salsa is liquid gold!

I took a nap, but right before I fell asleep Max got me out of bed because he couldn’t find a bag of his Legos!! I’d made the boys take the trash out while I made lunch, so of course he was super worried that he’d thrown out a bag! Of course they were right there when I went out there. Boys!

When Ted and I got up from our nap we sent the boys outside to play while we made supper. Ted used Alton Brown’s inverse method for steaks while I made stink potatoes and seven-layer salad for the sides. Yesterday I was looking for the backup jar of mayo, and this morning I remembered where it was. We put it in the styrofoam ice chests to weigh them down; we put them under the bus while we stored the huge Lego box in their compartment. Ah, bus life!

Supper was awesome! The steaks were so tender! We watched the first half of Guardians of the Galaxy while we ate. After the boys got in bed I finally read Ted’s Alton Brown post. It cracked me up how many negative comments we got on the state of our bus, our choice of condiments, the Mickey pants I was wearing…I got a tiny (tiny, tiny) taste of what it’s like to live your life in the public eye. It only made me laugh with how silly and petty it was. If I had to live that all the time it wouldn’t be funny!